{"id":423272,"date":"2026-02-13T08:23:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423272\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:23:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:23:29","slug":"leicestershire-new-zealander-spinner-ajaz-patel-joins-county-to-replace-keshav-maharaj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423272\/","title":{"rendered":"Leicestershire: New Zealander spinner Ajaz Patel joins county to replace Keshav Maharaj"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Patel&#8217;s spell at Headingley came before he shot to international notoriety as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/59485301\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">third bowler in history to take 10 wickets in a Test innings<\/a> in 2021 &#8211; having claimed an incredible 10-119 against India in Mumbai, the city where he was born.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England off-spinner Jim Laker and India leg-spinner Anil Kumble are the only other players to have achieve the feat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leicestershire described Patel&#8217;s additions as a &#8220;significant achievement&#8221; with director of cricket Claude Henderson saying the New Zealander is a player who has found himself in &#8220;pretty select company&#8221; with his international exploits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Additionally, having played county cricket before, along with his international experience, can only benefit the changing room,&#8221; Henderson added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Patel&#8217;s move to Leicestershire will not only see the former Glamorgan and Durham bowler return to County Championship action, but also feature in the T20 Blast and One-Day Cup for the first time after being made available for all three formats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Patel told the club website that he is &#8220;excited&#8221; to be joining the newly-promoted side and added that he is determined to bring even more success to the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patel&#8217;s spell at Headingley came before he shot to international notoriety as the third bowler in history to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-423272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}